


and it led me to you

by moonlitwriting



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28830729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitwriting/pseuds/moonlitwriting
Summary: nearing the end of his second year of high school, suna finds himself drawn to you, a neighbour and a schoolmate, who becomes a catalyst for changes he didn’t expect to see in himself.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu & Ojiro Aran & Suna Rintarou, Suna Rintarou/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	and it led me to you

**Author's Note:**

> i'm cross-posting this from my blog, by-moonflower.tumblr.com, so do not worry if you've seen this on there!
> 
> i'd like to preface by saying that i don't usually write this much in such a short amount of time, but it's a story i really wanted to read for myself and i'm quite happy with it. thank you in advance if you're planning on giving this piece a shot ♡

suna scowled beneath his breath when he stepped out of the minimart to find it was raining. the weather had been acting up all week without any forecasts of an upcoming storm.

he observed the sparsely lit up street where the downpour looked nothing more than a mist and convinced himself it wasn’t hard enough for him to pull his jacket over his head. instead, he gripped the plastic bag that hung from his wrist—filled with a few pastry assortments and an energy drink—and set off on a light jog back home.

what he least expected to find, however, was you standing under the lamp post that stood in the middle of your house and his. you only had on a sweater to shield you from the shower, your hands buried deep in the pockets of your jeans. you stood on the side closer to his house too, just a few steps in front of the polished wooden gate that led into his front yard. 

suna glanced over at your place, squinted as raindrops freckled his cheeks, and saw the that the lights upstairs and downstairs were on. he never really pried for the details behind what went on inside those walls, but he knew enough to guess that your parents were fighting again.

without a second thought, he approached you and if you noticed his presence at all, you didn’t show. “wanna come in?”

the invitation didn’t mean much to him. he barely knew you anyway, except for the fact that you moved in next door about a year ago and that you were in the class next to his. but in this small town, the rumours covered more than just your name and where you used to live. he had overheard some aunties gossip about the alleged _unloving_ relationship your parents had.

it was almost every night that you left your house at around 10 p.m. and suna only knew this because he would catch you leaving whenever he mindlessly stared out the window on nights sleep escaped him. sometimes you had an overnight bag slung over your shoulder, walking out with big, confident strides. other times, you wouldn’t even make it to the street and just settled on your patio, staring at nothing.

you made no indication of responding to his invitation with your gaze fixated on the asphalt. your sweater was drenched through already and suna’s hair began to annoyingly matte against his forehead.

he shrugged, unwilling to wait on your hesitance. when he reached his gate, he paused. he had every intent of just hurrying back inside to get out of this weather, but he couldn’t help but think about how you wouldn’t be loitering around here if you had somewhere to go. with one hand pushing the gate open, he called over to you. “it’s pouring. just come in.”

it took you a few but you turned on your heels and shuffled towards him, pausing in between steps like you were still hesitant.

when he slid the front door open, suna kicked off his sandals and you followed him in, slipping your shoes off quietly and placing them neatly in a corner.

“it smells like peppermint,” you remarked to yourself and suna didn’t know how to respond.

“living room is on the left,” he said instead, nodding in the direction. “uh, make yourself at home.” he began to walk down the hall, about to make his way upstairs and back to his room when he added, “there’s a back door in the kitchen. you can leave through their too later, if you want.”

suna lingered at the bottom of the stairs long enough to hear you mumble your thanks, then he proceeded to climb up to the first floor. but once he reached his room and lifted a hand for the door knob, the minimart plastic bag shook quietly as it still dangled from his arm.

before he knew it, suna was walking back down the stairs to hand you a random pastry he pulled out of the bag. he froze at the doorway, however, when he almost walked in on you pulling off your sweater. you had a shirt on underneath but it briefly rode up your torso, revealing the smallest sliver of skin. immediately, suna casted his eyes away, felt his breath hitch. he had completely forgotten that your clothes must be soaked from the rain.

backing away, suna made a stop to the laundry room to retrieve a clean towel. when he returned to the living room—peeking first to make sure you were decent—he found you sat on the sofa, but with your upper body pivoted to face the window behind it. you let your chin rest on the backrest, your hair damp and the sweater neatly folded on your lap.

“hey, uh,” suna placed the pastry on the wooden coffee table across from you and you turned then, to the sound of his voice. “here,” he said, also holding up the towel for you.

you held his gaze for a moment and suna realised this was the first time you had ever looked him properly in the eyes. he had never run into you going to or coming from school, probably because suna had a stellar record of tardiness and volleyball practice always kept him busy until the evening. but it was that split-second in your eyes that suna felt something tickle in his chest; something that eroded any intentions of heading back upstairs.

for some reason, suna was compelled to stick around here in the living room.

you were the first to break the silence, carefully reaching for the other end of the towel. “sorry for being such a bother.”

it wasn’t that big of a deal to him, but he was caught in between wanting to reassure you of that and wanting to make sure you were okay, given that he found you standing in the rain like that. any words he could muster jammed in his throat, however. all he could manage was a feeble nod.

he supposed he hovered around the coffee table for a beat too long because you looked back up at him, your hands busy wringing out your hair, and said, “everything okay, rin?”

the name caught suna off-guard, eyes wide and tongue-tied. it was a name that not just anyone would call him, much less someone as good as a stranger, much less someone like you.

you must have noticed the slight shift in the air because you began running your apologies. “sorry, i- i just...” you avoided his eyes. “you get called that at school sometimes, i think?” then you shook your head to yourself, brows tightly knitting themselves together. “it’s, um... it’s suna, yeah?”

suna didn’t even realise he’d been holding in a breath until he wanted to tell you that he didn’t have a problem being called by the former name. “it’s... fine.”

“hm?”

suna lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. it was his turn now to pull his gaze away from your figure. he didn’t even know why he felt rather sheepish about it. eventually, he brought himself to sit on the other end of the three-seater couch. “rin. you can call me that.”

your lips lined into a polite smile. “cool.”

silence fell upon the room again and suna was uncharacteristically racking his brain to figure out how to keep it from getting too quiet. out of habit, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and began staring at the screen, his finger swiping here and there but not really doing anything.

out of the corner of his eye, he saw you neatly fold the wet towel and place it on the coffee table before returning to the position to which he found you; your body facing him but your head turned to look out the window behind.

as casually as he could manage, suna shifted his own position to mimic yours and he couldn’t help but steal a glance your way. he recognised the vacancy in your stare and it scarily reminded him of himself, almost. it looked like you were looking out the window but it felt like you were seeing something beyond the panes, the bushes outside, and the streetlights.

“i won’t overstay my welcome,” you said, a quiet sigh leaving your lips. “don’t worry.”

he blinked. “i didn’t say anything.”

you replaced your head on the pillow with your elbow, letting your cheek lean against your palm as you faced him then. “yeah, but you’re looking at me like you’re wondering when i’ll leave.”

though that was _not_ what he was thinking, suna still felt he was caught red-handed for staring too long. his lips parted in an attempt to defend himself against your callout, but your face broke into a wide smile, one that stretched more generously and filled your cheeks.

“i’m just joking, rin.”

luckily, he managed to let out a scoff. “kind of brave of you to joke around with someone you barely know.”

you nodded, “kind of brave of you to invite someone _you_ barely know into your house.”

suna hummed in acknowledgement, his heart picking up speed at the thought of how well you responded to him. 

“your folks aren’t home?” you asked.

he shook his head. it would only take one sweeping look at this living room to notice the stark contrast it had with other homes; the lack of family photos. suna didn’t even know if he ever had any taken with his family, or if his family had ever been happy together long enough to have some taken.

“parents are divorced,” he began, not even questioning why he was prepared to answer you so earnestly. “dad visits from the city from time to time and mom lives with grandma a few hours away from here.” he turned his head to face the ceiling. “took my sister with her,” he added.

“oh,” was all you said. “yikes.”

this wasn’t that big of a deal to him either. suna was used to being alone, used to doing things for himself, and used to being by himself. he was always pretty occupied during the days anyway, so he never really had time to feel lonely—especially not when he had the miya twins around almost all the time too.

with his second year of high school ending in a few months, suna figured the last would go by in a flash and that he’d leave this town forever anyway.

because you brought the subject up first, suna decided it would be alright to ask you the same. “what about your parents?”

a few moments of quiet. suna couldn’t bring himself to face you so he continued staring up at the ceiling, watching the lights. its glares, however, incited a drowsiness within him.

“they’re home,” you simply said.

you didn’t elaborate and suna concluded it was something he shouldn’t push. 

you didn’t say anything else after that either and it was then that suna found himself counting to five, thinking that he would only close his eyes for five seconds. a stinging sensation overtook his vision, reminding him that the reason he went on that minimart run in the first place was to wake himself up a bit to continue working on a school assignment.

all he knew was that he closed his eyes for a lot longer than five seconds. when he woke up, you were gone and both the folded towel and the pastry were left on the table.

* * *

the sound of squeaking sneakers against wooden planks resounded throughout the gym. suna landed back steady with a thud and a bitter taste in his mouth when the ball he just spiked landed slightly out of the target he intended.

it had been a particularly off day for him, with the principal catching him sneaking into school late this morning and then having a pop quiz thrown at him for chemistry. the only thing he usually looked forward to was volleyball practice after school, but even then he found himself feeling ticked off because the soles of his shoes felt weird.

he fell back into line behind aran, who gave him a once over and looked like he would say something but didn’t. suna found himself staring at the caged gym clock every few minutes or so and began to feel frustrated that he was doing that too.

truthfully, suna hadn’t stopped thinking about you since he invited you in and he was stupefied to sometimes catch himself wondering where you were or what you were doing. what used to be coincidences of him witnessing you sneak out the house at night, became something like a routine, as he’d glance over and read 9:52 p.m. on his clock just before briefly pulling his blinds.

it was stupid, he knew. you had been a neighbour for an entire year and something of a schoolmate for that time too—one brief encounter shouldn’t have affected him the way it did. he’d never say that out loud, never admit it.

suddenly, suna sensed something flying towards him and in the last second, he leaned back to dodge the ball hurled his way.

atsumu, who stood by the volleyball trolley, flailed an arm around, “oi, so you’re _not_ sleepwalking?”

suna didn’t even notice that he reached the front of the line again, the net suddenly towering over him with a type of pressure he didn’t usually feel. he was about to just suck it up and do the jump and spike like he was supposed to, but kita, who had always been attentive to his teammates’ conditions, called him to the side.

“are you not feeling well? is everything okay?” he asked, but it sounded a little bit more like a warning because if kita ever caught a player on the court feeling less than 100 percent, he would send them home.

“i’m fine,” he said.

but kita’s definition of fine had to encompass both the physical and the mental and despite his half-hearted protests, suna was sent home.

at around half past 10, suna pulled open the blinds slightly to see out his window, curious if he’d catch you sneaking out again or find you sitting on your patio. you weren’t there and suna only watched the wind sway the fallen leaves in your garden.

* * *

the only reason that suna had been able to get away with being late for school thus far, despite the front iron gates closing at 8 a.m. sharp, was because he discovered a hollowed out hedge near the east wing of the school, behind the gymnasium. a janitor once caught him sneaking in from there but the old man was nice enough to keep it secret.

only suna and the twins knew about that shortcut. until he discovered that you knew it too, when he attempted to sneak in and was blocked because you, coincidentally, were trying to sneak out.

you emerged through the hedge with a few stray leaves caught in your hair and suna tried his best to keep from brushing them out for you. you looked just as surprised to see him but the shock didn’t last long enough and you greeted him with a warm, long-time-no-see smile. it had been a week or two since he last saw you.

“hey, rin,” you beamed, carding your fingers through your hair and catching the leaves.

his eyes narrowed. “are you sneaking out?”

“you won’t tell, right?”

suna learned a little too well not to get caught up in other people’s business, the practice all thanks to the antics that the twins get up to, so he only shrugged in face of your slight pleading.

you reached out and touched his arm, “thanks, rin.” and then you took off.

suna glanced at the time on his phone, wondered why you would even bother to come to school if you were going to sneak out after first period anyway. though he already had one hand clearing the branches to sneak through the hedge, he changed his mind last minute and decided to run after you.

“hey, wait up!”

when you turned around, suna felt every movement of yours slow down like those motion pictures. the morning light shone onto your face through the cracks in the shade of the trees. you swung around your school bag like there was barely anything inside and you stopped, waited for him.

suna wanted to commit this image of you in his head, standing in your school uniform amidst the trees by an empty street.

“just so you know,” you said, as soon as he caught up to you. “i’m only skipping p.e., so wherever we’re going, we need to make it back in time for lunch break, cause i have history for last period and i don’t want to miss that.”

suna scoffed. “p.e. isn’t _that_ bad.”

“you don’t get to say that when you’re on the volleyball team.”

suna cocked his head to the side. “how do you know i play volley?”

your strides were too leisurely for someone who didn’t want to get caught skipping school, and suna only followed you in step, without knowing where you were going. he was only made aware of his surroundings he heard the screeching brakes of a bus. the doors opened and you hopped on.

as soon as you were seated, you resumed the conversation. “more like who _doesn’t_ know the volleyball team, also known as inarizaki’s pride and joy?”

suna almost winced at the slight mockery of your tone. he knew you didn’t mean it like that but anytime that anyone would point out the prestigiousness of their school _because_ of its volleyball team, he wanted to cringe. they were second best in the country, or third maybe, sure. but the title and all the glory that came with it didn’t last very long for suna. to him, it was never about the award ceremonies, just the actual time he got to stand in the court.

he changed the subject. “you ever watched a game?”

you shook your head, “never been drawn to the gym before, i was told it smelled like feet so i keep a good distance away.”

suna laughed a little too easily at that, and though he might’ve just been seeing things, the corners of your lips twitched like you wanted to smile too. “come to one of our games, i swear the plays would make up for the smell of feet and sweat.”

you threw your gaze out the bus window as you thought about it and suna found himself waiting anxiously for you to agree. it was only after a few stops did you finally turn back to him, your shoulder accidentally hitting against his, when you asked when the next game was.

the next game would be in three weeks.

* * *

suna found you leaning against his gate after practice one day, the sun already setting into its warm, golden glow. he frowned at the sight, wondered how long you’ve been standing there.

“the gate’s actually always open,” he said, when you looked up. “you’re free to wait on the patio. i have practice till 5 on thursdays.”

you gave him that grin he’d become too fond of before nodding your head as an indication that you’d follow in after him.

despite being popular for his position on the volleyball team, suna never went out of his way to foster friendships with anyone other than from his year. the only third years that he knew were also only because of volleyball. without the sport, suna would’ve cruised through school on his own; the miya twins being the only exception because they both forced themselves into his life even before he met them on the court.

he could say the case was similar to you, except you made no barging in efforts because he seemingly was always ready to open his door for you. the easygoing air around you made him feel like he’d known you for longer than he really had. you also addressed him so amicably that it confused him, how often you were alone at school, at least from what he heard. he barely ever saw you in the halls, despite your classroom being right next to his.

he never asked, but you’d introduce him to a song that had been stuck in your head for a few days and subconsciously, he would memorize the tune of it until he’d see you again and you’d show him another song.

on that day, you walked in and made a beeline for the kitchen, opening it up to pour yourself and him some orange juice. the hours then go by in a blur. you laid on your back on the floor and suna had his legs over the backrest of the couch. you told him about the one time you accidentally shoplifted a bag of carrots from the supermarket and suna told you about the one time the volleyball team went out to a drive-in cinema and stuffed the twins into the trunk to avoid their admission fees.

what was months of silence in this house, the four walls of his living room finally witnessed a laugh as bright as yours. you never held back whenever you did, your face always turned up to the ceiling and your hand on your stomach. suna never considered himself a guy with a great sense of humour, but you made him believe so.

after a few laughs, a couple more jokes, you finally calmed down. “we’re almost done with second year, but can you believe we’re graduating soon?”

“yeah,” he said. suna couldn’t imagine the team without the third years, he couldn’t even imagine the school without them, let alone digest the fact that _he_ soon would be a third year. he knew well enough that atsumu was begging for the day to come, unable to wait for the time he can bathe in seniority of being the eldest cohort in school, but suna didn’t get that.

“do you have any plans after?”

suna also developed a growing sense of dread for that question, mainly attributed to the indifferent responses he’d receive from both his parents whenever he hinted that he might just still want to do volley. he was well aware that he was no genius player like atsumu, but he enjoyed the game enough to think he’d still want to keep doing it. nothing else was supposed to matter, wasn’t it?

“don’t know,” he said. “you?”

“same.”

it was already dark outside and you helped wash the cups that you both drank from before leaving. at the back door of his kitchen as he saw you out, you suddenly turned around with wide eyes like you had just remembered something.

“oh, there’s this photography exhibition going on in tokyo this weekend and,” you rubbed your hand behind your neck, eyes flitting around nervously. “i was wondering if you’d want to come with?”

suna stopped himself from agreeing immediately. he feigned a thoughtful expression to make it look like he was weighing through the non-existent plans he had for the weekend.

“yeah, sure.”

* * *

you greeted suna with a slight chuckle when he met you at the platform. “ _someone_ looks like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

he couldn’t even pretend not to look tired when he barely got any sleep the night before. he tossed around in bed, perhaps a little _too_ excited about the outing with you today. but he’d never admit that. “why’d you have to book the earliest train?”

you shrugged, handing him his ticket. “because it’d probably take only an hour or two to go through the whole exhibition but it takes at least four hours from hyogo to tokyo and four hours back, _so_ we might as well spend the day there.”

the train ride to the capital city does take roughly four hours, but the time slipped past suna completely because once he took his seat, he fell asleep as soon as the train left the station. he couldn’t recall the last time he’d been on a train for that long. every time the team travelled to tokyo, or any other region of japan, for a game, they’d take the school bus. 

you shook suna awake one stop before tokyo and as he blinked through the drowsiness, he noticed you had earphones in and that you were occupied with a very complex-looking colouring book. but you were packing your things, zipping up your pencil case and slipping your stuff back into your bag. suna too combed his hand through his hair to make sure he wouldn’t have strands sticking up in weird places in your presence. he doesn’t usually drool when he slept in vehicles, but he wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand for good measure.

tokyo was just as suna remembered it from the last time he came for a national game. or, at least he assumed so because it wasn’t like he ever had time for sightseeing and such whenever inarizaki did come to play. the time spent in between games would always be for resting or calming the nerves, or even squeezing in some last minute practice when kita wasn’t watching.

so it felt nice to be there despite the flurry of crowds as soon as you both stepped out of the station. advertisements plastered the tall buildings that lined the streets and some pedestrians had umbrellas up to shield them from the sunny day. suna might’ve been a little overwhelmed by the fast-paced bustle, if it weren’t for the way you easily navigated through it all.

you pulled suna by the elbow whenever he was about to walk in a direction opposite to where you were meant to go and you easily side-stepped slow-walking families, acoustic buskers and even fire hydrants.

at that point, suna just followed you like a moth to a flame and once you turned into a street where the crowds slightly dispersed and he could hear his own voice again, he commented, “you sure know your way around here.”

you turned to face him and slowed down your pace to fall back into step with him. “oh, that’s only cause i lived here for a bit.”

his brows knitted together, “i thought you used to live around miyagi?”

“before hyogo? yeah, we moved around a lot, never staying in one place for too long.”

suna nodded to himself, took note of the fact that this was one of the rare times you mentioned something about your family or your past. you generally tended to avoid the subject altogether and suna had just habitually steered clear of the topic anyway.

the photography exhibition was as fleeting as you explained it to be that morning before embarking on the train. though he couldn’t really fathom the meaning behind the photos in the glass frames and the old-looking cameras shelved for display, suna found a lot more interest in the way your eyes lit up and how you’d almost run to certain photographs, one finger running across the information plaque as you read the accompanying caption, or description, or whatever it was that they put there.

in a few cases, you would find a display and look back at him expectantly, your eyes inviting him over to see what you were seeing. but in most cases, you were on this journey yourself, bouncing from exhibit to exhibit like you already had each and every one memorized, committed to memory. suna didn’t mind at all that you barely spoke as you both made your way through the maze of photographs, he was just happy that you bothered to invite him along, despite it looking like you could’ve very well made this trip alone.

it took exactly an hour and thirty minutes until you emerged out of the art building and back onto tokyo’s streets. next on the agenda was to find a place for lunch and you had so kindly delegated the task to him. suna wasn’t very good at directions so you waited on him as he pulled out his phone and trusted google maps to help lead the way. when you leaned over to get a better look at his phone, suna tried his best not to stare at how you stood so close to him.

“i think i wouldn’t mind living here,” you offhandedly said, through a mouthful of rice. you both ended up getting to-go bento boxes and finding an empty bench in one of the city’s smaller parks.

suna hummed, intending to swallow his food first, but you continued.

“it’s crowded, yeah, but maybe that’s why. the busy streets kind of make me feel like i could easily hide, easily blend in.”

he could relate to that, suna wouldn’t mind living an unassuming life, one that never pitted him against the crowd. he nodded again, “yeah, i think i like coming here every time we have a match with a tokyo school.”

“it’d be a lot of fun if you already knew people here though,” you said, picking through the vegetables and swiftly transferring an enoki mushroom from your bento to his. suna had no significant opinion on mushrooms but thought it was a bit cute how you did that. “it’d be cool if we both came, wouldn’t it?”

with the sheepish smile on your lips, suna knew you were only joking.

the station was less crowded on the way back, only because you were taking the last train back to hyogo. suna made the commitment to _not_ fall asleep on the ride back but it proved very difficult when you had both spent the entire day traversing the vast city.

all he knew was that his eyelids felt much too heavy around two stations after tokyo and that he fell asleep again, but was woken up when he felt something heavy weigh down one of his shoulders. when he glanced over, you had fallen asleep too, your head fitting snug against his body and the ends of your hair slightly tickling his arm. he tried his best not to move a muscle before the blurry view through the window lulled him back to sleep.

* * *

suna typed, deleted, then retyped and then deleted again a text to you in the morning to remind you of the game later that evening. he spent fifteen minutes in bed that morning, late for school, debating over whether it was a stupid thing to do. he even briefly considered asking osamu for advice, but chased the thought away immediately, feeling even _more_ unnerved about explaining to any of the twins why he was inviting you to watch their game that day.

but suna pressed ‘send’ by accident and just as he figured he should throw his phone out the window, you responded a few seconds after with: “of course!”

suna had never felt more pumped for a game than he did right then. it was probably why he ended up at the gym first, arriving even before kita, and already had his uniform on when the others leisurely walked into the locker rooms.

atsumu froze completely and stared slack-jawed. “’samu,” he rasped, “there’s an impostor wearing suna’s uniform.”

suna only rolled his eyes, ignored atsumu’s comment and said, “i’ll get started on warm-ups.”

the game he invited you to wasn’t even an official game, nor a serious one at that. it was a friendly match with a school from the neighbouring prefecture. but inarizaki had no concept of a ‘serious’ and ‘not serious’ game. to them, each and every match where their teammates were found on one side of the net was one to be played with full intents of winning.

suna had the blood-pumping adrenaline to think that inarizaki could easily sweep away the two sets.

but as the school’s cheering team filed into the gymnasium and the opponent arrived, getting started with their own warm-ups, suna kept glancing over to the stands, eyes scanning the crowd to find you but failing to do so.

“who’re you lookin’ for?”

suna almost jumped at osamu’s sudden appearance by his side. he inspected the crowd too as if to try and answer his own question.

“no one,” suna murmured, before walking back to the middle of the court. he didn’t know why it bothered him so. suna never expected his parents to come and watch his games so should’ve been used to the fact that no one he knew showed up. his friends were there with him on the court and inarizaki’s cheering team was a loud bunch, enough to boost morale and support anyway. he shouldn’t care that you weren’t there yet, he shouldn’t get so worked up over it.

inarizaki then lost both sets, and you never showed up to the game.

the team’s footsteps were heavy when they walked off the court, following an earful from the cheering team and then kita’s expected systematic list of all the weaknesses they showcased that evening. teamwork was off, communication was lacking, the twins experimented too much, stamina was not used wisely.

though kita’s words had entered one of suna’s ear and out the other, his attention snapped back to the captain as soon as he heard him call out his name. “everyone can go, except suna.”

aran left him with a sorry pat on the shoulder before the entire team filed out as soon as they could. kita scarcely ever needed to critique someone in private, he usually did it in front of the others because he trusted the watch-and-learn strategy. but this time, suna thought he must’ve screwed up so bad that kita wasn’t even willing to let the others know what he had to say.

kita’s first words, once the locker room was empty, punched him harder than he expected. “i’m sure you already know that you dragged the team down today.”

suna kept his eyes casted downwards. he _did_ know, but it was harsh hearing it out loud.

“is something wrong?” kita kept his voice levelled. “something going on at home?”

before he knew it, suna muttered through gritted teeth. “it’s none of your business.”

kita stepped forward, “speak more clearly.”

suna seldom ever got angry enough to raise his voice or even attempt to uphold an argument, but in that moment in the locker room, he was somehow fuelled with enough frustration to glare coldly at his captain. he knew he had no right to do so—kita wasn’t yelling at him, neither was he mad. when he stated that suna dragged the team down that evening, he knew it was only a fact; an ugly, foolish one.

but suna was frustrated at his own frustration. emotions broiled inside of him with an intensity he wasn’t used to. he shouldn’t care so much, he shouldn’t get so worked up over something like this. so, why couldn’t he bite back his words? why couldn’t he have just stayed quiet like he always did?

“i said, _it’s none of your business_. i know i screwed up today, i know i dragged the team down, so would you get off my case?” he ran his mouth with no pauses to let kita speak and said whatever came to his mind, anything unfiltered. “maybe it’s an off day, maybe it’s the pressure, _i don’t know_. maybe if you stood on the court long enough you’d know what it is.”

suna stormed off before he could remedy the lies that came out of his mouth. or perhaps before he could register the slight shift in kita’s eyes. his mouth tasted bitter, he felt so unlike himself.

he took the long way home that evening, circled a neighbouring block a few times because going home to an empty house didn’t sound like something he wanted. he also wasn’t sure how he should react when he faced you. he wanted to play it off like it was no big deal but he _did_ care. whether he wanted to or not, he did care that you hadn’t shown up.

but any trace of his anger completely subsided when suna found you sitting on his front porch. you had your face buried in your hands. when the sound of his footsteps prompted you to look up, your eyes were puffy and rimmed red.

neither of you said anything when you followed him inside and suna was at a loss for words when your hiccup-like sniffles occupied the air. the living room suddenly felt like it was shrinking, maybe because he was looking at you balled up on the sofa, your knees up to your chest and your chin resting on them. naturally, he took the spot right next to you, hesitantly reached out a hand to brush away the strands of hair stuck to your face with dried tears.

you let him do it, mostly. he tucked the tufts of hair behind your ear but couldn’t find the willpower to retract his hand from your face. so his finger traced down your jaw, slowly grazing by your chin, until you winced.

suna pulled his hand back immediately, afraid that he might’ve crossed the line somewhere. but as you pulled your face back and suna was granted a better look with the evening light streaming in through the window, he noticed the reddish—almost purplish—patch that hid under your chin, but stretched almost to your neck if you looked up.

“is that... a bruise?” he breathed, his hand still frozen in the air.

your eyes grew wide with something like fear and you immediately tucked yourself tighter into your legs, as if you could hide your existence and shrink even smaller.

suna’s initial anger returned with renewed wrath, but one that he didn’t know where to direct. “who did this to you?” he said quietly.

but you couldn’t form the words to respond to him, fresh tears rolling down your cheek as you wiped them aggressively with your sleeve. “n-no, this... it’s never happened,” you mumbled, your words punctuated with shaky breaths.

suna wanted to shake some sense into you, to get you to just spit out who was responsible for hitting you. but a part of him already had his suspicions, and he was also half afraid that he wouldn’t know what to do if you confirmed it.

and you did. “h-he’s not like this. m-my dad would never hit me.”

he swallowed hard at the way you were fighting through your sobs to defend your father. he suddenly recalled the rumours that he overheard the other school moms murmur on parent-teacher conference days, but he never really pondered how far an unloving relationship could go. he was selfish to have thought that his case—a divorce, neglect and loneliness—was as bad as it could get. it wasn’t.

“it w-was just... j-just another argument. that’s n-not who he is. suna, please.” you forced yourself to look him in the eyes. “y-you have to believe me, he’s not... he’s not that kind of person.”

suna shut his eyes because he couldn’t stand looking into your desperate, pleading stare. with his hand still suspended in air, suna found the courage to offer open arms to you. he intended to move forward and wrap you in them but as soon as he held them up, you threw yourself onto his chest.

he held you like that for what felt like hours—it was all he thought he could do. in the deep silence that blanketed you both, suna could hear you counting to yourself and it didn’t take much for him to figure out that you were trying to hold your breath and stop crying. but suna carded his fingers through your scalp while his other hand rubbed your back in big, circular motions.

“it’s fine,” he whispered. “just cry.”

* * *

kita donned the exact look of surprise that suna pictured in his head when the former answered his front door and found suna standing there.

he recited the words he practiced the entire way there.

beginning with a deep inhale, suna said, “i was out of line yesterday, i’m sorry. i need to learn to keep my personal affairs out of the games.” he punctuated his apology with a sturdy, 90-degree bow but kita only gently patted his shoulder, urging him to stand up straight.

“this is the third and last time i’ll ask you; is everything okay?”

suna could’ve put on his usual indifferent expression, could’ve given kita a quick nod, or even just walked away knowing kita wouldn’t press him for it.

but he didn’t, and kita went to sit on the top stair of his patio, a wordless way of saying he was ready to listen. suna had always known kita had been the reliable figure of the team, and he trusted it, despite not understanding his captain’s methodical habits and the strictly, orderly life that he lived. he was the kind of senior that suna secretly wished he could be.

suna dropped his weight beside kita, arguing against the awkwardness that might ensue.

“it’s not me,” he finally said. “it’s someone i know.”

kita didn’t push for a name and suna was grateful for it. “are theyokay?”

suna had repeated that question to himself so often ever since that first day he let you in from the rain, but he could never gage an answer. it wasn’t in his nature to be kind, or considerate, or thoughtful. the most he could ever do was get the sense that something _was_ wrong, but he never had it in him to act upon those instincts. he’d tell himself, _things’ll work out on their own, so_ _just let time do its job._

“i don’t know,” suna admitted.

kita took his time with his words, and it gave suna the space too to process what had happened last night. how he almost argued against you returning home, the offense you took when he let slip how your dad might do it again. he didn’t know what was the appropriate way to act, what he could do to help you, or if he _could_ do anything at all.

throughout the time that he had gotten to know you, suna could never really pick out a time where you felt comfortable enough to let your guard down. you laughed easy around him, you enjoyed his company, and you came to him when you had nowhere else to go, but suna didn’t know where that even placed him. was he a safehouse? was he a backup plan? was he the pit stop before your grand destination?

“i won’t ask about the details,” kita finally said. “but if it’s someone else, generally, it would be good to remember that you won’t know what it’s like to walk in their shoes.”

suna stayed quiet.

“so, the best you can do... is be there for them. be someone they can turn to, be someone they can talk to, be someone that can remind them there is enough room in this world... to outrun the bad things.”

to suna, it felt like kita had already peered into his mind and read every concerning thought that flew through his brain. a small part of him maybe already knew this, but it was different when these words were said aloud. it was different coming from someone like kita.

that afternoon, you only responded to suna’s text once and though he was ready to welcome you in and put to action kita’s advice, you didn’t come over.

* * *

for the first time, suna actively searched for you at school and he was met with a few surprised looks when he asked your classmates for your whereabouts. a particularly haughty boy from the student club responded to suna’s asking with a taunt of his own. “ _the_ suna rintarou is looking for someone?”

suna almost wanted to roll his eyes because he couldn’t even pinpoint where the mockery in the boy’s response was aimed at. he only knew that the dude’s tone was enough to tick him off. just as he was about to spit something else that might have incited a fight, suna heard your voice from behind him.

“rin?”

when he turned around to find your startled eyes, a wave of relief washed over suna and he fisted his hands to keep from running to you. he kept his cool instead, calmly walked over to you who stood by the door, and asked you to come out to the hall.

“you’re okay?” he first asked in a low voice. he tried not to stare at you too obviously but it proved difficult when all he was trying to do was check if the bruise was still there. by now, it would’ve changed colour but suna didn’t see it, and because you caught on quickly, you tilted your head up as if to reassure him all was well.

“i’m fine,” you said, before pursing your lips like you wanted to hold back a smile. suna wasn’t sure if you had just covered it up with make-up, but it wasn’t visible, at least. with the way he was still staring, you took the opportunity to embarrass him a little. “were you worried about me?”

“yeah.”

his response must’ve been unexpected to you because you weren’t trying to hide a smile anymore, you only looked stunned. suna didn’t even say it to woo you or make you blush or anything. it was the truth; he _was_ worried about you.

the bell rang and students rushed through the halls to make it to class on time. “can i walk you home?” he asked. thankfully, it was the one day of the week that he didn’t have volleyball practice. 

you nodded, then gave him that see-you-later smile, and suna felt his heart beat with ease again.

out of the corner of his eye, suna could spot the tufts of blonde and smoke-grey hair peeking out from a pillar in the middle of the hall. “i can _see_ you dumbasses,” he called, and both atsumu and osamu revealed themselves.

“what the hell, suna? do you have something to tell us?”

“no.”

“who was that then?”

“a friend.”

“a friend or a... _friend_?”

“shut up, ‘tsumu.”

* * *

suna woke up to the sound of shattering glass, and in his panicked state, he leaped out of bed to look out his window. in your garden, he could make out crystal shards reflecting the moon in the grass, then something that looked like a heavy table ornament amidst the mess. the window on your first floor was broken and suna hurried down without a second thought, everything happening a little too fast.

when he reached for the doorknob of his back kitchen door and swung it open, you were already there, your hand stretched out as though youwere just about to open the door.

your arms were shaking, but the first thing suna noticed was the blood dripping from your palms. he had questions but he didn’t even think to get them answered. all he knew was that he needed to encase, to wrap his arms as protectively around you as he could. though you still held your hands up when his hand gently beckons the back of your head into him, like you didn’t want to get the blood on him, suna felt your face push into his chest, his t-shirt soaking in warm tears. 

suna didn’t say a word when he got your wounds cleaned up. he didn’t say a word when he handed you some of his clothes to change into. he didn’t say a word either when he sat with you cross-legged on his bed.

an eerie quiet settled outside. suna didn’t know if it was an argument that turned physical. if the cuts on your hand was someone else’s doing or your own. if you were here to find shelter or to escape someone. suna didn’t know a lot of things.

you weren’t crying like you did last time, but suna thought maybe you were still in too much shock to process anything that happened. he intended to give you time, give you space, give you _room_.

suna made you some green tea and offered a snack that the twins’ mom brought over for the volleyball team. he added a small comment about how embarrassed the twins always were since their mom had always occasionally come to their practices since middle school. you cracked a smile at that and suna thought it was more than enough.

the digital clock on his bedside read 2:43 a.m. when you rested your head on his pillow and he mirrored your position with the pillow beside yours. it was strange, but neither of you could fall asleep. instead, he only stared at you and you at him. he laid next to you with the distance from his elbow to his hand between your bodies, but it was close enough for him to feel nothing but warmth. close enough for him to hear nothing but your breathing.

“what are you thinking about?” he said after a while.

the corners of your lips turned up slightly. “you.”

he let out a small laugh. “what about me?”

in your scrutiny, suna felt himself shrink. he didn’t care what others thought of him, and he learned early on how he shouldn’t have a problem with it. maybe that was why he always looked bored, or indifferent. showing the least bit of excitement or showing more than what was necessary could invite the opportunity for disappointment. he never wanted to waste his time like that, especially not when he got so caught up in it when he was a kid and the whole thing with his parents unfolded.

but everything came undone when suna met you, and his palms began sweating as he anticipated a response from you. one that would perhaps hint at the fact that you _did_ like his presence in your life.

“that... maybe i wasn’t dealt such a bad hand in life after all.”

suna felt his heart sink to his stomach and the slightest prick in the corner of his eyes. he couldn’t fathom the way you uttered such a statement so calmly, how your soft voice could ever match the sort of atrocities you’ve seen.

“that despite everything that had ever gone wrong in my life, it still led me to you.”

the words left suna’s lips before he could even think them. “i love you,” he whispered.

you broke his gaze to look at his hand, then reached out to brush the pads of your fingers against his. “you’re just sleepy, and i’m lying in your bed. you don’t... you don’t mean that.”

he slipped his hand from under yours to intertwine your fingers together, the band-aid on your palm grazing his. “no, i’m serious.”

“but you don’t know everything about me.”

“i don’t have to.”

you continued to stare at the way he held your hand. suna continued to stare at you.

“i do love you,” he repeated, like the second time would be enough to convince you. you finally pulled your gaze back to him and suna did what he’d been meaning to for a bit of time now.

he pushed himself up to lean over to you, using his free hand to cup your cheek. he managed to close the distance but his face still lingered hesitantly, the tip of his nose brushing against yours, his warm breath fanning your cheek.

it was you who leaned up to kiss him though, you who gently pulled the neckline of his shirt to bring him closer. and though suna wanted to get lost in your wandering hands, though suna wanted to pepper every expanse of your skin with feather-like kisses, he gently pulled away.

one more time, he said, “i love you.”

you shook your head and breathed, “i don’t know if i deserve that.”

the next morning, police tape surrounded the perimeter of your house. after barely getting an hour or two of sleep, you woke up to news that your father had suicided.

* * *

not even a week after the incident, did you and your mother leave the school and hyogo. the house next door was empty once again, but this time leaving behind painful memories and existing now as a constant reminder of you to suna.

you didn’t tell him you were going, you didn’t say goodbye. you never really had many friends at school anyway, so maybe it wasn’t all that difficult for you to pack up and leave. suna ignored the nagging thought that maybe after all this time, it had always been easy for you to pack up and leave him.

it was the first time since joining the volleyball club in junior high that suna missed a few practices and even skipped some days of school altogether.

people talked, as they always did. some said your father did it out of guilt. some speculated it was your mother’s doing, while others argued it was self-defense. some praised you for escaping when you did, and others questioned why you didn’t stay and help. there were many different versions of the story floating around but the only thing suna knew was that no one could ever really know how to properly deal with a situation like that, not unless you’d been there before.

but you were gone now, and that was what suna cared about the most.

word also got around that there was something going on between you and suna. he never denied nor confirmed anything, but even atsumu wasn’t stupid enough to try and crack a joke over it. it was rather unsettling to see atsumu walk on eggshells during practices or in class. but the team tried their best to treat suna as they usually did, but he would catch their stolen glances and their cautiousness.

time then went by in one, big haze. suna went on to finish his third year at inarizaki without you. his upperclassmen came and witnessed when they took home first place at the summer interhigh tournaments. both suna’s parents and his little sister came to his high school graduation ceremony, and suna could finally pack up that old, empty house and leave that town like he always said he would.

* * *

it had been a few months since suna settled in tokyo, a city he was finally convinced to move to after having met some players from itachiyama and fukurodani through the final spring high tournament. he hadn’t yet decided if this was the last stop or just a buffer period, but it was a good enough next step. being in the capital meant at least he was at a central area for new opportunities.

his apartment was free of the moving cardboard boxes and he was content with the one-bedroom suite; it was enough for only him, not too big like that old house, which allowed too much room for loneliness.

suna had just ended an unexpected 3-hour facetime call with the miya twins, mostly because osamu wanted to present his entire business plan for a shop he wanted to open up, and atsumu was running his mouth about _all_ the offers he was getting to try out for different national teams.

the only reason that the call ended was because suna purposely turned his wifi off so that the call would get disconnected. when he received another incoming call, he ignored it.

what he still hadn’t gotten used to, however, was figuring out the best eateries, the best deliveries or the best takeaways in his vicinity. he’d ask his friends but no one really lived in the district his apartment was located.

so suna still had to make the manual trek downstairs and wander the streets in hopes of finding one of those hidden gems—the places with big portions but paired with student-friendly prices.

but it was at the traffic light of an intersection a few blocks down from his place that suna, unmistakably, recognised you standing across the street. he had to look away and look back to you to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating or projecting an image of you onto a stranger. but it was, undeniably, you.

you looked just as beautiful as he remembered, a little older, slightly maturer too.

you kept your gaze trained on the floor that even when the light turned green, you must’ve only walked ahead because you felt that everyone else was walking too. purposely aligned his path to collide with yours, and when his feet stepped in front of you, he blocked your way.

“excuse—” you began to say, but you stopped short when you looked up and recognized him too.

suna felt every single feeling he ever felt for you in high school, rush back to him like the turbulent winds along a coastline. he never gave himself time to think if he had gotten over you, forgetting about the feelings was as good as not having them anymore. or perhaps all this time he had just hidden them away in a little box, one that could be reopened from time to time, one that was buried underneath all his other things but was inexplicably _still_ there.

you ended up taking him to a small place for dinner. you led the way like you did that time you went on that day-trip to tokyo together but suna had to reign in his giddiness, reminding himself that the time between when he saw you last and in this moment, could’ve wedged such contrasting lifetimes between you two.

maybe you’d be the same, maybe you’d be different. either way, suna knew he shouldn’t get his hopes up.

but you were never really good at maintaining small talk with him. as soon as the waitress turned on her heel to hand your orders to the chef, you blurted out a small, “i’m sorry.”

suna leaned forward in his seat. “what for?”

of course, suna _knew_ what for, but he meant to ask why you felt the need to apologise for something that happened in the past.

he was, in more than one way, at peace with what happened. he admitted that he once wanted to hear an apology from you, that he wanted to let you know how your leaving hurt him in ways he didn’t know how to heal from. some days, he wallowed in seething rage over why sometimes life turned out like that. it reminded him of his childhood. some other days, he blamed it all on the guilt tripping, beating himself up for not doing enough or not _being_ enough.

but after weeks, then months of lamenting and regretting, suna knew he wouldn’t get anywhere and that wasting his time thinking about it wouldn’t bring you back either.

wherever you had gone, suna could only hope you were at least safe, or at least somewhere better. 

“i had meant to write you a letter, or send you a text but—” you looked down at your lap. “my hands shook every time i tried. it felt wrong, you know? i didn’t want such.... a bad time to be documented like that.”

“it’s fine,” he said immediately.

but you shook your head with a frown. “it shouldn’t be, rin.”

“it is,” he said. suna gripped the glass of cold water on the table and took a sip. “but i forgive you, if that’s what you were wondering. and, i think you should forgive yourself too.”

his words prompted you to look at him, a little surprised. suna wasn’t sure if he was reading into your expressions too much because you turned your head away from him, and he caught the briefest sight of your eyes turning glassy.

suna told you about his plans to tryout for a few v.league teams and you told him about how you got into the university you wanted. suna couldn’t put a finger on it, but you were the same, and yet different.

though he tried his utmost best not to expect that this run-in with you meant that you could just resume the relationship you had back then, you made it all too easy for him to let go. he’d throw his head back laughing at the way the dumpling slipped through your chopsticks and made a mess as it splashed into the soy sauce. you asked him too to recount how inarizaki won one of the tournaments and how it must’ve felt at the time.

a few time, serious moments clouded you both, like when suna let slip how he heard that song you once told him about in a store. or, how you offhandedly said you missed him when you ended up back in tokyo earlier than you expected.

the silences would settle, and suna kept quiet at the thought of whether this was something that could be picked up where it left off.

when he found out that you lived in a flat that was a twenty-minute walk from his, suna offered to walk you home. you refused the first time, but he insisted. you gave him some much needed advice on the way; which supermarkets were worth buying his fruits at and which ones had better quality meat. where to get cheap but reliable appliances and who to go to if they ever break.

as soon as you both reached the foot of the building, you spun around on your heel and glanced at the beige, concrete building. “well, this is me.”

suna nodded, stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his pants. this was as far as he was willing to go.

“funny, don’t you think?” you said. “that we really did end up in tokyo together.”

he smiled to himself. it was the first thought that came to him when he saw you at the intersection.

“head inside,” he said, jutting his chin towards the entrance.

“not until you go.”

“i’m not moving until i see you head inside.”

you sighed at that, a small smirk on your lips. “so, you’ve gotten a little more uptight, rin?”

he deadpanned you as best as he could, but it was hard to keep a straight face when you kept pursing your lips, keeping yourself from breaking into a fit of giggles.

then you stared at the ground, your voice suddenly reduced to something more quiet as you held your hands together behind you. “do you... want to come in?”

suna shook his head, “next time, yeah?”

worried that you’d look up with eyes of hurt, seeing his response as a rejection, suna stepped forward to close the distance. one hand easily came to pull your chin up from facing the ground and suna kissed your forehead, a space a little above the gap between your eyebrows.

“i don’t want to rush things,” he said in a low voice. he wanted to show you he could exercise some self control, but suna couldn’t stop staring at your lips, his thumb mindlessly tracing the bottom one.

“okay,” you said, as one of your hands came up to pull his down from your face. 

you let your fingers ghost around his skin for a little, warmth touching his wrist, then his knuckles, then along his fingers, until you made the braver move of stepping back.

“i’ll see you soon?”

suna smiled, “yeah, soon.”


End file.
